Lunatic
by tonikristine
Summary: The last few days Scott had been growing increasingly snappish. The phrase bite your head off would be an appropriate one, Stiles thought, if it weren't being applied to a werewolf and the very real possibility that it could become more than a metaphor.
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.

Story is set after "Lunatic," but kinda disregards the rest of the season's events. THIS STORY IS NOT SLASH. Comments and reviews are always welcome.

The last few days Scott had been growing increasingly snappish. The phrase _bite your head off_ would be an appropriate one, Stiles thought, if it weren't being applied to a werewolf and the very real possibility that it could become more than a metaphor. Scott's patience was clearly worn away, though by whom or why Stiles didn't know. The moon had just finishing waning, so Stiles doubted that the problem lay there. Besides, Scott wasn't mean, just short-tempered. He'd growled at the poor student-helper in the cafeteria when the mashed potatoes she was trying to spoon onto Scott's tray released too soon and landed with a splat on the counter instead. Mr. Harris earned a snarl when he dared question why Scott hadn't brought his textbook to Chemistry. And Stiles was certain that he'd seen Scott's eyes flash yellow when someone jostled him during passing period.

Stiles leaned with his back to the lockers while Scott shuffled through the mess of books and papers in his locker. The final bell had rung only a couple minutes ago and the halls were already rapidly emptying. "Everyone's talking about it," Stiles said. "Joey's parents are going on a cruise—finally celebrating their Honeymoon, or something—and they're leaving…" A couple walked past, hands firmly locked together. Stiles wouldn't have paid them any mind normally since teenagers holding hands were pretty common in these halls, but these two had their non-clasped hands wrapped around each others' waists and their tongues down each other's thoughts, and Stiles immediately lost his train of thought about the impending party and started trying to work out the logistics of how these two were able to walk at all without stumbling over each other and into everyone around them. Out of his peripheral, he saw Scott's nostrils flare wide, his nose tipping upward, and his eyes—

"Scott!" Stiles hissed, backhanding Scott's arm. "What the hell?"

Scott's hands balled into fists and he closed his eyes, and he seemed to be trying _not_ to breathe. Stiles could hear the shallow wheeze of air as Scott exhaled out his mouth. "I hafta go," he gasped. He slammed the locker door shut and took off down the hall, leaving his backpack on the floor. Stiles nudged the bag with his foot, then reached down and hefted it onto his shoulder with a resigned sigh. Chasing after Scott, taking care of things Scott left undone—this was becoming far too much of a habit.

Stiles found Scott at home and in the shower. The boy was huddling, fully-clothed, under the streaming water. Walking in on Scott showering also seemed to be becoming a theme in his life, Stiles thought wryly. When Stiles was feeling upset or anxious, he headed for the refrigerator. Scott, however, seemed to head for running water, which Stiles was pretty sure was a bizarre Scott-thing and not a bizarre-werewolf thing, though he wasn't sure how he could go about getting an answer to that without also getting his throat ripped out. Just the idea of broaching Derek with that question brought a tremble to his knees.

The water was set on cold, its chill permeating the air such that Stiles felt a noticeable temperature decrease when he stepped up to the bathroom door. A small shiver crawled down the back of his neck, not unlike the ones that preceded a need to run for his life. The backpacks had been deposited on the bed, just in case he had to. These days, that was always a possibility. He checked Scott for claws before opening his mouth. Scott's hands, which were wrapped around his knees, showed only pale pink fingernails. "Dude, what's going on?" he asked.

Scott shook his head without looking up. "I don't want to talk about it," Scott replied in a low voice. Stiles had to strain to hear him over the water. Scott's hair was plastered to his head, making him look pathetic.

"Whatever it is," Stiles replied, "it can't be that bad." His mind flashed through all the things that had been that bad, from his best friend trying to kill him in the locker room to, uh, his best friend trying to kill him at the school-and how was this also a theme in his life? What did the two of them do together before Scott got bitten? Certainly it didn't involve such high levels of attempted homicide. Scott just shook his head again, still refusing to meet Stiles's eyes. With a huff of frustration, Stiles stepped over to the bathtub and shut off the faucet. He grabbed a towel from the rack on the wall and tossed it over Scott's head, making the teen look like a child hiding under his sheets. "Get out," Stiles ordered. He eyed the sodden sneakers that Scott had on; he hadn't even bothered to remove his shoes. "Get dried off-"

From beneath the towel came Scott's voice, still low, hesitant. "I'm horny."

"What?" Stiles tipped back on his heels, not sure if he'd heard what he thought he had, not sure if he wanted to hear what he thought he had.

Scott yanked the towel into his lap, leaving his hair mussed. His cheeks were dark with color and he was still far too focused on his knees. "I'm—" he started.

"I heard you, I heard you," Stiles interrupted, throwing his hands up as if to block the words. A second later, the want-to-know-everything part of his brain took over and he lowered them again. Scott didn't deserve the defensiveness, anyway, though he had been the one to draw the boundaries about sex discussions. "So, why don't you do something about it?" he asked, waggling one partially-cupped hand in the universal gesture for beating-off.

Scott's color grew darker and he shook his head. "Can't," he replied. Before Stiles could ask why, Scott wordlessly answered—his fingernails grew into claws, wicked, sharp claws intended for shredding and tearing flesh. Stiles cringed, the implication of those nails hitting him like a full-body tackle. He felt his dick and balls trying in a crawl into his body in sympathetic self-preservation.

Stiles sighed, the direction of the conversation becoming obvious to both of them. "You know what?" he said, "I'm just going to step out here." He tipped his head in the direction of the bedroom, even though Scott _still_ wasn't looking at him. Not that he could blame him. Stiles was pretty much the only person whom Scott could talk to. This would be the downside of that role: needing to talk about masturbation. Did the real Yoda ever have to talk to Luke about that? Certainly training your protégé to fight the worst evil in the galaxy was worth some exemptions. It wasn't something you _talked_ about. Alluded to, hinted at, joked about, made accusations of—Sure. The whole point was not to treat the topic seriously. He pressed his lips together in resignation. He was going to have to—but it certainly wasn't going to be while his best friend cowered, sopping wet, in the bathtub.

Stiles dropped to the bed first, then bounced right back up because, damn it, waiting on the bed could be misread in all kinds of ways. He tried the desk chair, a simple leather-padded chair with a metal back and wheels, and plopped onto that. But his usual position of sitting with the seatback as an armrest now felt like a defensive posture, and he didn't want to send that message either. And sitting on the chair the way it was meant to be sat on just didn't work; he couldn't find a comfortable position that didn't carry any innuendo. What was not going to be said here was going to be just as, if not more, important than what was. The only other seating choice—besides the floor, which he was not going to take—was the green wingback, but that was Scott's. Claiming it would make Scott tetchy … -er. And more uncomfortable. And then the conversation would have to go on so much longer. Stiles stopped in mid-stride. This was ridiculous. With a full-body shake, he decided to stop being such a seventh-grader. Mind made up, Stiles reclaimed the edge of the bed, further deciding that he was simply going to take every comment or gesture over the course of this conversation at precisely face value, and he was only sitting on the bed because it was there.


	2. Chapter 2

The bathroom door opened then and Scott came out. He'd toweled his hair into a shaggy mess and exchanged his wet long-sleeved shirt and jeans for a pair of knee-length gym shorts. He was also bare-chested and shoeless. "You know I could hear you out here," he said with an abashed grin. That grin looked so much like Scott that, if Stiles didn't know better, he would have thought that Scott had managed to pull one off in the bathroom and the problem was now solved.

"So," Stiles said, ignoring Scott's comment. He didn't want to have to explain why he'd been bumping around the room. More, he suspected Scott already knew, since Stiles'd probably been muttering under his breath while doing so. He'd always had a bad habit of talking out loud to himself, to the point where he sometimes caught himself and wondered what kind of person he must be if even he didn't listen to his ramblings.

Scott's grin disappeared and he looked suddenly awkward, like a marionette whose strings were too loose. "Yeah," he answered, dropping his head. He slumped into the desk chair. Not the green chair. Did that mean something?

"I'm guessing this is a new problem," Stiles ventured. He tried to think back to when Scott's fuse had become so short. The guy had always been prone to a mercurial mood, but the snapping was definitely recent. "Since, ah, Allison broke up with you?" he guessed.

"Yeah," Scott said again. He glanced up quickly, barely enough for the eye contact to count, then went back to watching the floor. "But not really until after the full moon," he amended.

Stiles did some quick math in his head. The full moon had been on a Monday, the horror night in the school on the previous Wednesday. Five days. And now it was an additional two weeks on top of that. He shuddered. He could barely go a day without getting himself off, and here Scott had gone almost three weeks. No wonder he was so testy. "So everything was fine before that?" he asked.

"Not … fine," Scott replied, "but not-" He huffed a sigh and dragged his fingers through his hair, clearly struggling with a different kind of frustration. "W-w-we didn't get as far as everyone seems to think," he said, "because I kept _changing._" He went suddenly still, head slightly cocked toward the window. Off Stiles's questioning expression he said, "Heard a car door slam, but it's not Mom's."

"Sooo…" Stiles prompted. "How far did you get?"

Scott perked up, a proud grin spread across his face. "I took her bra off," he said.

"Way to go?" Stiles replied, not sure if he was supposed to feel impressed on behalf of his friend's sexual prowess, embarrassed at his friend's lack of prowess, or jealous because he couldn't even claim such a paltry accomplishment.

Scott apparently decided to accept the comment as a compliment; his grin widened—then abruptly died. Stiles could practically see the thought balloon over his friend's with the word _Allison_ peppered throughout it. "She wanted to," he said, adding, "With me," as if that were the really unbelievable part. "A-a-and I couldn't, and now she won't let me near her, and I can't even..."

"Jerk off," Stiles supplied, when it became clear that Scott wouldn't be finishing the sentence. "Spank the monkey. Hold the sausage hostage—" He could feel his vow slipping away.

"Stiles!" Scott wailed. "You're not helping."

"And I'm not going to," Stiles replied with a definitive nod. "So you can just get that idea out of your head."

Scott's mouth dropped open, stuck on a protest that wouldn't form. The look of panic that flooded his face was so comical that it was all Stiles could do not to crack a grin.

"I'm your Yoda, dude," he pointed out, just in case he wasn't being clear. "Not your Han Solo. And definitely not your Leia."

"Dude," Scott complained. "That's gross! Leia was Luke's _sister_!" The objection tapered off with the final r still hanging in the air. Scott's eyes widened, then softened as his gaze turned internal. A small smile danced around his mouth, pulling one corner up in a far-too-familiar expression.

Stretching across the gap, Stiles stomped his foot on Scott's. The teen yelped, yanked his foot back, snapped out of his daydream. "Not the time, man," Stiles said. "Think about Allison in Leia's slave costume later." A moment passed. Scott grimaced, nodded. "Which does bring up the question: Why don't you think about her when you—"

"Doesn't work," Scott snapped. "It just makes things worse."

"You've tried it?"

"I've tried it."

Stiles leaned back on his elbows and pondered what he knew. The problem with researching werewolves was not the lack of information, but the lack of quality control. Every website breathlessly proclaimed its truths, few agreed with any other, and Stiles had no way to differentiate the real or useful from the patent nonsense. Silver killed werewolves! But only if introduced to the heart! No, it didn't; It only burned them! Caused pain but not death! No, it didn't! (Yes, it did. No, it didn't.) Wolfsbane prevented transformation! Made the werewolves sick! Could be used like a divining rod! Was just a myth! Or a conflation with the vampire mythology! His head reeled from the contradictions. The only thing he could be certain about is that issues surrounding teenage werewolf self-pleasure were not covered in any of the literature. "I'm probably going to regret saying this," he said, after a moment to recover, "but, Derek—"

Scott went pale. "No," he said, the word strangled.

Stiles flinched, but couldn't blame his friend. Derek was scary.

"Stiles," Scott continued, "What am I supposed to do? You have no idea how h-h-_difficult_ it is at school. I-I-I can smell…" He rolled his neck, scowled, squirmed uncomfortably in his seat. Stiles recognized that squirm; he was guilty of it practically every time Lydia sashayed into the room.

Stiles sat back up, dragging his hands over the back his head and down his face. "Have you tried, I don't know, changing your grip? Using the vacuum cleaner? Rubbing against a tree? The carpet?" Only the noise Scott made in the back of his throat—somewhere between a squeak and a growl—got Stiles to stop listing the alternatives as they popped into his head. "I'm just brainstorming here. What about a sex toy? One that you could, uh, hold and get your claws out of the equation." He couldn't help grimacing, both at the suggestion and at the mental image it created that he really, really did. not. want.

"A sex toy?" Scott's eyebrows danced up. "One that I'm going to buy with the credit card I don't have off the web site I don't have access to and have shipped to the house so that my _mom_ can find it first!" Scott's voice climbed as he spoke, growing increasingly shrill.

"OK, OK. I'm just trying to get caught up here. Unlike you, I haven't been thinking about your libido non-stop for three weeks. And I hope I'll never have to think about it again." Stiles squeezed his eyes shut, pressed his fists to his forehead. There was something he was missing. Something he had read or thought and had dismissed as not important. If only he could catch it out of the maelstrom in his mind.

"It's getting worse, Stiles," Scott spoke, now sounding calm, though based on how tightly his fingers dug into his thighs, he was anything but. "The moon has started waxing." His mouth opened as if there were more, then closed. The implications didn't need spelling out. Assuming Scott didn't break before the full moon, what kind of monster would he be then? Handcuffs didn't hold him last time, and that was all Stiles had been able to trick him into. How would they be able to protect him, or anyone else, when there was more than one kind of lust involved and no morality to restrain either?

And why was Stiles thinking about silver? Silver the metal. Silver the color. Silverwear. He shook his head. Silver bullets. Also not helpful.

"Is that look going to help me?" Scott asked, hopefully.

"Huh?" Stiles blinked, twitched, torn between following the thread that his brain had just handed him and the goings on in the real world. The idea had been _right there_, and now it was gone. "No. Not yet."

Scott had been leaning forward, alert. He slumped again. It was like he'd given up, had revealed to Stiles what was going on only because he was completely out of options. Which, Stiles realized, was exactly what had happened. Even when they had sleepovers, even late at night when the conversation invariably turned to some combination of girls and porn, Scott had never willingly shared his personal habits. He didn't judge any one else's, and he wouldn't share his own. That he was this open now only showed the depths of his desperation.

It was like they were rehearsing to be guests on a supernatural daytime talk show—a thought that Stiles cut off cold. He couldn't shake the idea that he was missing an obvious solution. Solid silver. Liquid silver. Frozen silver? Now that was just ridiculous. And, then, there it was. Stiles jumped to his feet, the mattress springs creaking with the sudden weight shift. "Be at school tomorrow," he ordered. "I think I've got something."

Because of the school's zero tolerance policy, Stiles couldn't address Scott's questions until lunch. Fortunately, most of them were buried in laden stares and meaningfully drawn eyebrows that he could pretend he hadn't understood, though he nearly chewed his lips raw in the effort of trying to keep quiet. The two boys had no sooner plopped their trays of cafeteria spaghetti on the table when Stiles pulled a small, brown translucent bottle out of his pocket and set it in front of his friend. "Take this," he said with a quick survey of the room to verify that no one was watching. The place was abuzz with activity and conversation, none of which intersected with the two friends. Once again they sat alone at the long table, just like old times. Drawing attention to the bottle was best avoided. At only a couple inches tall, with the kind of top that doubled as a dropper, it could easily pass for a prescription medication—or a not-so-prescription one. And without an Rx label, it would get both of them expelled if a teacher saw them handing it off.

Scott held the bottle up to the fluorescent cafeteria lights and tilted it back and forth. The liquid inside was viscous and opaque. "What is it?" he asked. The extra day hadn't been kind to him. His skin was ashen, eyes bloodshot and drooping from the exhaustion of stress, the lines of his body taut. His shirt was on backwards, the tear in the collar seam showing from where he'd ripped out the tag.

"With any luck it's the solution to your problem." Stiles rolled his shoulders in a physical punctuation of a mental track shift. "Or it's a slow and painful descent into madness and death. Obviously, I'm hoping for the first option." Under his breath, he added, "And hoping it's not both." He shoved a forkful of sauce coated noodles into his mouth, slurping loudly to catch the marinara before it dripped onto his shirt.

If Scott heard the aside—and there was no chance in the world that he hadn't—he chose to ignore it. Instead, he unscrewed the lid, brought the bottle to his nose, and inhaled. Frowned. "Yeah, but what is it?"

"Hrdragrmum," Stiles mumbled around another noodly mouthful, swallowed, tried again: "Hydragyrum." Though he over-pronounced the word, Scott responded with a blank look. Stiles rolled his eyes. Would it kill Scott to do a little homework? Seriously, what would the guy have done without him? "Did you know that some experts believe the myth about silver killing werewolves started with a mistranslation of the chemical name for liquid silver?" Scott shrugged, still not making the connection. He looked like he was waiting for the punchline to a badly told joke. Stiles slapped his friend on the back of his head. "Mercury, you idiot. Liquid silver. Apparently this stuff has been used for thousands of years to treat, like, every possible disease and condition out there, including a lot of sex related ones."

Scott jumped at the word sex, cast a furtive glance around. On confirming that that they were somehow still flying below anyone's interest radar, he leaned closer to Stiles and dropped his voice. "What am I supposed to do with it?" He recapped the bottled, rolled it around between his fingers, watching the fluid coat the inside then coalesce with the rest.

"I would suggest eating a drop or two before you—" Stiles darted his gaze around the room pointedly. If any phrase would get overheard and latched upon, it would be that one. "—You know. It should suppress the wolf for a little while. Your healing should protect you from the heavy metal poisoning, but if I were you, I'd be as stingy as possible with using this stuff cause, well, I could be wrong." He made a moue and shrugged broadly, both hands out, indemnifying himself. "Also, I had to steal it from Harris, so this might be all I can get for awhile."

Scott blinked at him, took a breath as if to argue. Stiles started placing bets with himself about whether the protest would be over his use of_killing_, _poisoning_, or _steal_. Instead, his friend closed his hand around the bottle. "Screw it," he said, standing up. "Whatever this does can't be any worse." Without another word, he left.

Stiles's eyebrows shot up in a silent _Really_?

On second thought, what did he care? And the spaghetti wasn't half bad today. Oh, and garlic bread. He turned back to his tray and resumed eating.

When Scott returned a few minutes later, Stiles could tell by the fact that Scott _didn't_ punch the table, crush the bottle in Stiles's face, or sulk into his seat that the hypothesis must have panned out. Then he caught the goofy grin, did a double-take. OK, then. Mission accomplished.

"We're never talking about this again," Scott declared, utterly failing to sound severe around his obvious relief. He reclaimed his seat, picked up his fork and dug in.

"That's fine," Stiles replied, with a dismissive wave of his hand. The line in the sand had been so thoroughly obliterated that there'd be no re-drawing it—for whatever that meant. "Dude," he continued, after a swig of water, "I've never meant this so much in my life: You really need to get laid." 


End file.
